1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of data communications. In particular, the present invention provides a system for establishing a master-slave relationship, at the physical layer, on a point-to-point link in a peer-to-peer network.
2. Background
Peer-to-Peer networks utilize a communication protocol such as Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD). The philosophy of this type of network is that every device coupled to the network determines, on an independent basis, when to send information to another device coupled to the network. To summarize this process, when a device has data for transmission to another device on the network, the device checks the medium across which it intends to transmit the data for any existing traffic. If the device senses traffic on the medium, it waits until the medium is free of traffic before initiating transmission of its data. If the device does not sense traffic on the medium, then it attempts to send data across the network to the other device. If the sending device detects a collision during the transmission, it suspends transmission and waits a randomly chosen amount of time before attempting to resend the data by repeating the above process.
As the utilization of a peer-to-peer network increases, the number of collisions on the network increases, thereby reducing the overall throughput of the network. To address this problem, technology has developed various types of hardware capable of higher data transmission rates and has developed more efficient network software. Higher data transmission rates reduce the time period during which the data is on the medium for a given amount of data, thereby reducing the probability of a collision with data from another device.
Network software typically includes several layers of protocol. For example, in an Ethernet local area network, the network interface comprises: the physical layer, the media access control sublayer and the logical link control sublayer. The physical layer's function is to take data packets given to it from the media access control layer and place the packets on the medium to be delivered to a destination device. The carrier sense, collision detection functions to support the arbitration of access to the medium by the attached device.
Each device in a peer-to-peer network is a peer to other devices in the network. Thus, no device is considered to be "superior" to any other device on the network. As such, a master-slave relationship between devices is not typically supported in a peer-to-peer network environment. It is therefore desirable to provide a system capable of establishing a master-slave relationship (when such need arises), at the physical layer, on a point-to-point link in a peer-to-peer network.